Talk:Hypnotize/@comment-3575890-20140702070358
I am so tired of being berated for not wanting children. Tonight, my mom laid on the guilt trip thick and then topped it with some sideways insinuation about how it's selfish of me to abstain from having children. I snapped and went off into a tangent. I said what is actually selfish is expecting me to put aside the life I want for a life I am not cut out for and do not want for myself just so that she can get what she wants. I said it's selfish to bring more babies into the world while hundreds of thousands of children are shoved into foster homes and orphanages because nobody cares about parenting already bred children. Everybody wants to overpopulate the fucking planet more than it already is. Now of course I don't believe that having children is a selfish act in of itself. I understand if people want children and it's their right to have them; my issue is with people popping out babies like it's going out of style without a long-term plan. Without thinking about how they'll support them. Without taking it as seriously as the level of responsibility it entails. ''This ''happpens all too often and is a selfish act, but according to my mom, so as long as you're popping them out, you're golden. HOW is it selfish of me to abstain from having children? Who am I hurting? My hypothetical child that will never exist? My hypothetical partner that I would tell from the get-go I have no intentions of ever bearing his children? The patriarchy for deciding, 'fuck you, I won't do what you tell me?' If I wanted children, I'd have them and my disdain of societal expectations be damned. BUT I DON'T. So I told her that her attitude reflects an issue that is far bigger than myself. I ranted about societal expectations of women. I ranted about internalized misogny ingrained in society. I ranted about how I resent that my attestation that I never want children is either never taken seriously or scoffed at. I told her that I hate when people jump to the assumption that I hate children (which she seems to think) because apparently the idea is so obscene that I can't have a validated reason and instead my stance must stem from some kind of irrational bigotry. That it can't ever come from a logical place. Of course I don't hate children! I just don't want the responsibility of raising one. I don't want the burden of another human being becoming an extension of my life. I don't want to be tied down EVER. I'm not even sure if I ever want to marry. Especially if I end up marrying somebody who will put the same pressures on me. I told her that I am worth more than my reproductive organs and when she reprimands me for not wanting children, it's like she's telling me I'm not. I covered all bases basically and she still just didn't understand anything.